Word: 80s
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That's how Marriott got into trouble. The company built hotels, sold them to investors and took back lucrative management contracts. Even if the hotel lost money--and many did--Marriott still made out. But by the late '80s the real estate industry came crashing down. Marriott and other companies, as well as real estate investment trusts, or REITs, were stuck with dozens of properties that couldn't be unloaded. The industry racked up losses of some $5.7 billion in 1990, or about $1,800 a room. By 1991 new construction virtually stopped...
Moreover, because of the luxe prices investors paid in the '80s for upscale hotels, it costs about half as much to buy one today as it does to build one. Case in point: the Four Seasons in New York City, opened in 1993 for about $500 million, was recently sold for $190 million. Hilton is shopping for big properties, "because the competition isn't as fierce when you start talking about spending $50 million or $100 million...
...have taken great pleasure in touting the billions of dollars consumers save by flying upstart airlines like ValuJet. At the same time, the agency has been reluctant to force companies to use new technology, insisting on proof that the benefits outweigh the costs to the airlines. In the late '80s, for instance, the agency dragged its feet on requiring the installation of the ground-proximity warning system in commuter airlines, even though this simple device could have prevented a number of crashes. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a separate agency that investigates crashes, has suggested that the FAA check...
...billion it has already cost to clean up the S&L disaster. "The government is paying the price for changing the rules in the middle of the game," says TIME's Bernard Baumohl. At issue is an agreement the government had made in the '80s, when it encouraged healthy thrifts to take over failing S&L's by allowing them to report the losses sustained by the insolvent institutions as "goodwill" assets. In 1989, however, feeling the offer had been too generous, Congress passed a law blocking healthy S&Ls from counting the goodwill assets as part of their minimum...
...wife or kids when things went wrong--it was never his fault," she says. Although Ralph swore off alcohol years ago, Ada thinks he's held on to his old way of thinking, except that now he blames the government and the New World Order. By the early '80s, Ralph was railing against high mortgage rates and unfair foreclosures, and in 1982 he appeared on a 20/20 segment with Geraldo Rivera...